the Devil take the hindmost

See also: the devil take the hindmost

English

Phrase

the Devil take the hindmost

1. Alternative form of devil take the hindmost.
   • 1973, James Broom Lynne, “Monday, 13th December, 08.20 hrs.”, in Collision!, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, pages 62–63:

     Completely unknown territory lay outside; puzzling, impossible networks of Underground trains and moving staircases; buses that jerked to a stop and barely gave you time to get on before speeding away. No time to ask questions; no time to ask for answers to be repeated; it was all quick and go and don’t come again. London’s for the thrusting and the Devil take the hindmost.

   • 1976, Jackson Reed [pseudonym; George Jackson Eder], chapter 14, in The Raptures of Love, New York, N.Y.: Pyramid Publications, →ISBN, page 204:

     “We’ll trot to the gate, side by side, and then we’ll race straight down the road, and the Devil take the hindmost,” shouted the Grand Vizier as fiercely as he could to his laughing partner.

   • 2014, James McGee, chapter 4, in The Blooding, London: HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 130:

     As his second-in-command cantered away, Johnson looked back down the column, thinking of the boy and the men he’d dispatched to look for him. And the Devil take the hindmost, he thought bleakly.